


Our share of night to bear

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Conversation, F/M, Love Confessions, Poetry, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-19 23:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8228918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: "These past few months... you've had an effect on me"





	

When had he decided to speak? Had it only been the instant before, when she raised her dark eyes, curious and cautious and so intent, when he saw how she drew a breath—in recognition or consternation? Was it earlier, the daybreak that found him at Private Cooper’s bedside when she had laid a hand lightly on his shoulder after setting down a cup of fresh coffee on the bedside table and murmured, “It’s the last of it, drink it while it’s hot,” and then walked away, graceful among the iron bedsteads? Or maybe it was the decision of many nights, sleepless and dreaming, remembering what she said, how she’d acted, the way she straightened her shoulders when the hour was late and some new task was given to her, her lips pressed tight to swallow back a yawn, then curved to a smile of acceptance?

It didn’t matter, for he’d come upon her in the library, where she sat to keep her account-books and patient logs, the volumes stacked on a table, one solitary lamp lit and the fire in the hearth making little inroads against the falling night and its chill. He’d called her name without thinking and she’d turned, her chestnut hair nearly black in the dim room, her lips parted with that soft breath.

“Mary,” he’d said and it had been enough to make her pause, enough time for him to walk up to her, closer than he should have been but she didn’t step back.

“These past few months…you’ve had an effect on me—I, I look for you in every room and there’s something I need to tell you,” he said, each word spoken almost without his volition except that he had wanted to say this for weeks of days. But she interrupted,

“Something you shouldn’t say, something I shouldn’t hear—Jed, you know it must be so,” and he made himself listen to her before he exclaimed or railed against her. He had made a beginning and he was not easily daunted.

“Why shouldn’t I say…what I want, what I need to? Mary, may I not be honest with you?”

“Because you are not free, because you are married… there cannot be anything between us that is untoward, you must understand that. I am not—I am not the one you should speak to, like this,” she said, her voice more uneven than he could remember, gesturing to him with one slender hand that he caught in his, and thought, _she’s too cold_.

“There’s no one else, Mary, no one else I would. No one I could tell.”

“There is your wife,” she said flatly, moved as if she would turn away, but still he held her hand gently in his and even tugged a little and she looked down at their hands, then back into his face.

“Is there? I don’t see how—I wrote to her, months ago, when I was first recovered from the needle, when you offered to help me and I thought of what you would tell me to do if I asked. What I owed and was owed, I’d promised-- I wrote to Eliza and I asked her, I told her to return to Alexandria. I told her I needed her here, with me,” Jed replied, remembering the letter, sitting at his desk and how he had not wanted to write Eliza’s name but could not write _My love_ or _My dearest_ without unexpectedly thinking of someone else before his wife, Mary’s face with her hair disheveled after Aurelia’s hysterectomy, how she had seemed all pearl and shadow when she nursed him and he moaned and writhed with the withdrawal, her Yankee voice clipped to his ear but the words all encouragement even without the drawling honeyed tone he was used to. The realization of whom he would rather address had frightened him and he’d written the letter in a rush, confident that he had at least tried to be the man who’d stood up besides veiled Eliza Stewart in her orange blossom and silk those twelve years hence.

“Oh! I didn’t know, you must expect her—how can you want to speak to me?”

“She refused. Prettily at first and then bluntly, she refused to come back. She wrote she was happily settled in California and she had no intention of returning. That the War had nothing to do with her and I’d made my choice for myself alone… and that was that. Am I breaking a vow, then, if she has already breached it?”

He took a half-step closer to her but only that; he did not move his hand to her waist or her cheek though he felt the urge to do it and the strength of it reminded him of how he’d felt before he’d eased the syringe of morphine into a vein, everything heightened, almost unbearable.

“I don’t know, I—how could she? How could she refuse when you asked? She is your wife, she promised…you needed her, so desperately! I was so worried about you, what would become of you,” Mary exclaimed after her initial silence. He heard that warm, righteous anger that only meant one woman to him, only Mary who defended those she felt deserving, who would not turn away or dismiss a cause, no matter what it might cost her, if she felt it was just or true or good.

“I suppose she doesn’t agree with you. But you see why, now, I feel I might speak, I may tell you—No. I must ask you what to do,” he said, shifting at the end as he recognized it was the truth, that he wished to ask for her advice, her permission, her agreement.

“Ask me?”

“I’m not the same man I was when you arrived, Mary. I am a Union officer now, not simply a civilian contractor, the Executive Officer of the hospital, and I have learned, oh, a number of things, from you, mostly. And your Mr. Diggs and Chaplain Hopkins. Even little Miss Dixie Emma Green has taught me, but I don’t know what to do—I’m in love with you, completely, and to say it is the greatest relief and delight and torture in one. Christ! To wait for your response, to let you advise me—I can hardly bear it but I know it is right,” he said.

“Dear God!” she gasped and pressed a hand against her waist, where she was tightly laced in her stays, the calico of her blouse snug against the whaleboned line of her. 

“I don’t know what to say, Jed, I don’t see what to do. You’re married, you’ve promised her—how can I tell you to break your word, how can I counsel you to be dishonorable, even if…Oh, this is worse, to know, I’ll remember you saying it, asking me to help you and I’m useless, I only want…” She broke off and he saw her eyes were troubled, bright with tears he longed to brush away from her lashes. She hadn’t returned his affection, not quite, but this was not a rejection; there was nothing cold or offended about her, not like Eliza’s last several letters.

“Isn’t there a solution? Couldn’t there be?” he asked softly.

“I-- not that I can see,” Mary replied. 

Jed paused, considered her carefully, all the aspects of her he knew and the wonderful hints of other incarnations that she gave to him with glances, gestures she did not complete, words she began to utter, then stopped. Could he help her see what he did? Would she?

“Your mathematics, I don’t pretend to understand what you study, Mary, what you’re capable of, but I remember a little from my school-days—isn’t is possible to think an equation has only one answer, to discover you’ve gone about it wrong? Aren’t we an equation of sorts? What if you were wrong about an assumption, that a marriage is inviolable, that Eliza and I are some parallel of you and your, the Baron? What if the marriage is destroyed, not by the death of the body but the… death of the heart, the will? Could you solve it then? My problem?”

He tried to keep any wheedling from his tone but he did wish she would look at him directly, would see what he felt for her in his regard, the way he held her hand. He waited as patiently as he could, though that had always been hard for him. He felt her contemplating him, weighing what he said and how; he didn’t know how she would tally it up or whether she would find her morality absolute, inflexible. The moment shifted, he couldn’t say how he knew, only that he did, that somehow there had been a return of the Baroness who threw herself into the fray, who castigated a murderous man and challenged Jed himself with eyes that blazed with her adamant soul, her exuberant spirit, a woman who did not simply accept what society told her, but only what she knew from her own reflections and her sense of a governing Power that was just and benevolent and thoughtful.

“If I am rewriting an equation, rethinking it, I need a new theory or set of integers. There is clearly merit to your point—I have not accepted so many things that the world says I must. Perhaps, there is something else to be added, that I haven’t considered adequately. Something that will help me see with a different eye. There are scholars who may exist only within the realm of abstracts but I cannot always untangle a proof without something more concrete to help me…You have said you love me-- I think you must kiss me, Jedediah, so I will know--”

He didn’t let her finish although he didn’t think she was much distressed; to hear her ask, so forthright and unashamed, teasing even, for his touch, was an incitement without comparison. He’d taken her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers in an instant, the feel of her, pliant, eager for him, her soft lips parted, her hand against his bearded cheek, a revelation. He could hardly think for the desire he felt, the urge to taste her, to stroke her wherever he could, and the sheer loveliness of her shapely body against his, but there was a small lucid quarter within his mind that was not only repeating _mine, my Mary_ , but which realized this was what it felt like to hold the woman he loved with all his heart, to be loved in return, recognized and still beloved. He kissed her again and again or perhaps only once but infinitely redoubling and he was thrilled to feel her match him, her tongue in his mouth, drawing him to her, licking at his lips, along the ridge of his teeth, a bold, warm caress but without any of a French courtesan’s practiced skill, Mary’s only genius in her devotion and her attention to his response. 

He moved to kiss her face, beneath her eye, along the curve of her jaw and down to her neck, the fragrance of her, rosewater and the faint, sweetly heady scent of her sweat, clinging to her and now him. She arched against him and he felt her breasts, soft and full, even through her dress, his buttoned brocade vest and linen shirt; he imagined how it would be to feel the entrancing heat of her through only a muslin chemise, his chest bare, the way the lace and French knots on the garment might tickle, the silk of her unbound hair surrounding them, and he drew back at the fierceness of his arousal, the sudden fear he might spill from only this tender embrace and his irrepressible fantasy of what more there could be. He held her loosely, laid his cheek against her braided hair, and tried to calm himself. He resisted the impulse to pull her back to him, to unbutton her collar and reveal the fair skin he’d seen once before the night of the Greens’ ball, to his view, to his touch. He tried to be quiet and was startled to hear her voice, the tone familiar from when she had nursed him, a voice that conveyed intimacy and care, to a degree he hadn’t realized at the time but which now cast their relationship in a different light, to know how long she had seen him as Jedediah and not Dr. Foster. 

“I love you, Jedediah. I hadn’t said it but I should, I want to. That is the effect you’ve had on me, these past few months,” she paused and there was laughter in the lilt, she was affectionate and earnest. “So we are declared and that is the first part accomplished, no? I think the answer to your, to our problem is much as it always must be,” and here she sighed, at the world and he felt the breath leave her, too soft to be entirely exasperated. 

“You will act and I will wait. For we cannot preform the converse, much as I would like to do something, anything, and I think you have waited long enough for help which hasn’t come. It seems your marriage is dissolved already, it is only a matter of making that state legally, civilly recognized. I shan’t tell you what to do, you wouldn’t want me to, but I will tell you I will be waiting, I won’t forsake you. I will be your friend, in whatever form that would take, though I do not think we should meet again like this unless I am to be Mary Foster—you overwhelm me and I think perhaps I overwhelm you a little too, and though we are not only of this world, still we must live in it, must work and not forget our duty, or let others have reason to cast aspersions and derail us,” she finished. 

She’d pulled back a little so he could see her face. Already, she was waiting for his response; she would care for him in the way she thought best, as a wife if she might, and a friend, amiable and at a remove, if he could not bear a divorce. Once, the idea would have been anathema, a dishonor he could hardly conceive, but Mary had only expressed what he’d come to believe and while he’d thought his future could only hold the needle and an empty partnership with a woman who barely tolerated him, he had discovered that there was an alternative, whether provided by a gracious Lord or simply the marvelous vagaries of life, right before him-- a woman who loved him truly, whom he wanted, in every way, and possibilities far beyond the morphine’s fantasies, if he were willing to undertake some censure from his fellows. It was not very difficult to decide, though he would have to gird himself for the complexities of a dissolution, that Eliza might fight for her union as he fought for his country’s.

“You propose a mean courtship, I think,” he offered with a smile, still taking in what she had said, what she meant to do. What she expected of him. For it would be paltry and scant, this wooing, without the praise he wanted to give her, the small tokens and attentions she had been doing without.

“Silent, rather. I’m not a young girl, I don’t need so much in the way of moonlight and nosegays and I would be shocked indeed if you could write a convincing poem. All that, all that you would want to do or say, it can wait. I’m patient, about some things,” Mary replied, nestling against him and the small gesture was so dear, so much like her and so unexpected to him, he felt weak with it, held her more tightly for balance.

“Are you all right? I haven’t distressed you, have I? You’re tired, it’s late,” she asked, drawing back, as if she would shepherd him to a chair or the door, to the threshold of his room. He resisted, steady again, but kept enough distance so he could see her face. How intently she looked at him, so eager to make sure of him, his happiness.

“You haven’t distressed me in the least, you couldn’t,” he began but she interrupted.

“I am most certain I can and I will, you know that, Jedediah. I already have, more than once, and haven’t you let me know it! But if you are not troubled now, I am glad.”

“And I am glad and overwhelmed and I cannot quite believe I’m standing here with you like this, it’s more than I’d hoped. And now I only hope I don’t try your patience too much or too long, that I may call you Mary Foster without any delay, give you something of what you deserve,” he said. 

“Mary Foster! It sounds well—I think you have called me ‘Mary’ more than anyone, even though it is my given name,” she laughed, a pretty sound he’d been missing in recent days.

“That’s not what your family calls you?” 

“No, I had two cousins named Mary born before I was, so I was always Molly growing up. And Gustav,” she said, breaking off but he couldn’t tell if it was for his comfort or her own.

“You must only tell me what you want, Mary. I’ll not pry, but you needn’t feel you can’t speak of your husband. I know you cared for him, very much,” he said, as mild and undemanding as he knew to be.

“Gustav called me Maria or Mareike, we spoke German at home as much as English. More, I think. Or Mitzi, he would call me that if I was being impertinent or he wished to tease,” she said reflectively, all affection with the hint of her long sorrow. Baroness Mareike von Olnhausen, so foreign sounding—if Miss Dix had written of her so, how much more shocked would they have been? And it seemed such an alien name for the woman he held in his arms, who was a Yankee miss through and through, all autumn leaves and tartness and inquisitive, outspoken virtue.

“I’m happy to be the one to call you Mary, then, and you’ll know when I do, while we wait for a resolution, that it also means sweetheart and darling,” Jed said.

“You shan’t try to make me blush, nor disgrace myself,” she declared. As if he could, as if he would while they were among others! Alone… when finally they might be and without censure, that was a different matter.

“No, I won’t. Nor will I be anything other than irascible, difficult Dr. Foster when we are on the wards or the dining room. But you must tell me a little more of what I could court you with, something to remember by-and-by, before I take my leave tonight,” he said. 

He would need to begin writing another set of letters, but this time, not only to Eliza but the legal practice his family retained and perhaps his old friend in Boston, Dr. Harris. He could use the advice of a friend and Jonathan might provide a necessary entrée to the Boston medical world; as distant as it seemed, he thought the War would have to end, and no matter the outcome, Mary would likely prefer to return to her family in the North. Jed had little desire to go back to Baltimore, the house he’d shared with Eliza, or the Chesapeake plantation he was no longer welcome at. It would be difficult, he knew that, but he had already the memory of Mary’s mouth against his, her voice and his each saying “Mary Foster,” and her promise, each one enough to give him ballast.

“You will wheedle until you get your way, won’t you?” she asked and he nodded, all innocence, all mischief, “I am hoist on my own petard with you, aren’t I? Well, then, you already know my fondness for mathematics but all my interests are not so uncommon from my fellow blue-stockings. I am a devotee of Romantic poetry, especially Keats, and I’m partial to violets,” she said, then reached to give him quite the most charming kiss on the cheek, her lips warm against his skin, a hand on his shoulder to help her balance. They both stood a moment, enjoying the aftermath, Jed searching his memory for the lyric he wanted, when he would have read away golden afternoons at university, the lazuline blue evenings in Paris when English was the foreign tongue and to recite on a balcony the simplest pleasure.

“‘The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone?’ Should that be enough for me to say good night with, do you think?” he asked, glad he had succeeding in remembering something of the poet, pleased beyond measure at the surprise in her dark eyes that waned quickly, replaced by appreciation and delight.

“Yes. Now be off with you, I’ve my work to attend to, you distracting man, and I have to finish that before I can go to sleep,” she replied firmly, pushing him from her a little, in a way that was familiar, the flirtatiousness of the betrothed or the wedded wife.

“Don’t stay up too late, Mary. The work will be waiting for you tomorrow,” Jed said, stepping away from her.

“True. But so will a certain surgeon and he doesn’t care for it if he can’t open when he wishes. I’ve even known him to throw a basin’s worth of clean scalpels across a room—can you imagine?”

“I imagine he’ll wait for you, Mary. He’ll wait as long as he needs,” he told her.

“‘O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!’ I said I would try to be patient, but I’d rather you know what I truly want,” she said and under the humor and the beauty of the poem, he heard her longing and thought it would not be so hard to pick up the pen, to start writing the letters to his, to their future.

“You’ll get it. You will. And as many violets as I can find.”

“I’d like that,” she said. He thought he’d never regret this night, anything before it or after, if only for that moment.

**Author's Note:**

> I have watched the trailer for Season 2 a not terrifically embarrassing number of times and Jed's line has struck me as a little... leaden? And likely to lead to someone interrupting them while they touch the fingers together like they're learning Braille. So I wrote this, to see another way it could go. Jed and Mary both quote from John Keats. Eliza Foster has been made out to be a piece of work (although I'm sure we could Wild Sargasso Sea this and she'd have a decent explanation) and Gustav is still cut from Christopher Foyle's cloth (Foyle's War) for me, sweet and dry in one.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Perception of an object costs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8237753) by [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch)




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